The 2024 season brings significant changes in the championships and fleet renewal for the Bas Koeten Racing team, as previously announced in the Porsche campaigns for this year. An interesting addition is their participation in two challenging races in the next week and a half: NLS3 at the Nordschleife (Germany) and the GT4 European Series at Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium). These races will be run with a brand-new BMW M4 GT4. This car will be driven in both races by the duo Samantha Tan and Jon Miller.
Jelle Koeten: “Our collaboration with Samantha Tan Racing (ST Racing) dates back to 2021. Since then, we have been their European base and partner. In 2021, it was for the previous model BMW M4 GT4, followed by two BMW M4 GT3s in 2022, making ST Racing the ‘launch customer’ of BMW Motorsport. The GT3s were flown back to their home base in America halfway through 2022 for their local programs, where they have been very successful. This year, we are running this new BMW M4 GT4 at multiple events. They fly in two drivers and an engineer, and we handle the rest: preparation, updates, logistics, tires, parts, registrations, and track support. Last weekend, Samantha and Jon were already in Le Mans. Samantha as a brand ambassador for BMW Motorsport and Jon to participate in a 4-hour FunCup race.”
Bas Koeten: “On Saturday, June 22nd, NLS3 will be run, a 4-hour race on the over 24-kilometer-long variant of ‘the green hell’. As preparation, we will already have a three-hour test session on this layout on Friday. We are registered in the SP8-T class and will be running on Michelin tires. The concept of NLS is quite unique: over 120 participants, ranging from Dacia Logan and Opel Manta to factory-supported teams with GT3s. We start in three starting groups of about 40 cars each. You share a pit box with up to 5 or 6 cars. It’s low-threshold but high-quality, which suits us well. Right after the Nordschleife, we head to Spa-Francorchamps. In the program of the 100th edition of the 24-hour race there, we will race in a field of over 50 cars in the GT4 European Series. On Sunday and Monday, we have time for service and setup of the car, but many systems also need to be converted, such as the data logger, GPS, and communication, as each organizer requires different systems. Additionally, we switch to Pirelli tires for the GT4 European Series. Tuesday, we have over 4 hours of training time, followed by the famous parade to Spa on Wednesday, combined with the drivers’ briefing in the theater. The official sessions are then on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The second 1-hour race finishes on Saturday afternoon, right before the start of the 24-hour race with the GT3s. It remains a unique race, the Champions League of motorsport. In 2022, we raced there with ST Racing and their BMW M4 GT3.”
“The last time we were active on the Nordschleife was in May 2018 when we participated in the 24h Nürburgring with a CUPRA TCR. As underdogs, we won that race in the TCR division, a unique moment in our team’s history. We see few Dutch teams participating in races at the Nordschleife, and we hope to do more of this. With our experience in endurance racing, this suits us well,” said Bas Koeten.